


Crash Course in Hospitality

by RedMenaceH



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Metroid Series
Genre: Awkward Romance, Crossover, F/F, Fluff, Shipping, Thirteenth Doctor/Samus Aran, but in that "for god sake both of you tell the other how you feel before it's too late", heavily implied, possibly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:14:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24200407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedMenaceH/pseuds/RedMenaceH
Summary: Two wandering knights, one of time and one of space.-“These are good hands,” the Doctor remarked as she held and inspected Samus’s left hand in its armoured gauntlet.All the times before the bounty hunter would’ve snatched it right out of whoever thought it wise to try and get a closer look, but the Doctor, the Doctor looked at it thoughtfully like it was the most important object in all the stars of the universe.“You've done a lot good with them."She wanted that to continue, the way the Doctor spoke and probed and ran the tips of her fingers along the grooves and experimented with the resistance, opening and closing each digit. No intent to unlock its secrets, as it always seemed to be whether it was Space Pirates or the Galactic Federation, just a wandering of, as the Doctor put it, fiddly digits.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	Crash Course in Hospitality

The intermittent beep seeped its way into the dream she shouldn’t have been having. Echoing through caves on a planet which no longer existed. Catching the attention of an explorer who might’ve been.  _ “Grey Voice?”  _ They found themselves asking with the wishfulness of exhaustion, barely above a whisper. “ _ Old Bird?” _

“Um, it’s the Doctor, unfortunately.”

That’s how the dream ended, kicked away with a rush of instincts and training, getting her head straight and body alert. No more caves. No more solitude. Why was it so bright? Why was there a beeping? Why was there a doctor? What happened?  _ Destination. Space Pirates. Ridley. Damage. Crash. Injured. Dying. Beacon. Cryosleep. Beacon? Beacon!  _ Head cluttered, hand raised grabbing onto the doctor’s wrist, vision clearing and making out a head of jaw-length blonde hair, pierced left ear and a smile, animated even as it held itself in place. Why were they smiling? They were being attacked by a galactic bounty hunter? How would anyone stay smiling with a cast iron grip threatening to break their wrist?

“It’s okay. It’s okay. I’m not here to hurt you. It’s okay. I’m the Doctor. Found your ship,” she began, without a hint of registering the hold on her wrist. “Caught onto your beacon, in fact, lucky that. Might’ve missed you entirely if we hadn’t stopped off for repairs. It’s okay. Now” -she raised her free hand, showing it to be completely bare besides the looseness of her silver coat’s sleeve, dropping down to reveal the gangliness of her arm- “You’ve got nothin’ to worry about with these fiddly digits, but if it’s fine with you, I’ll step right back to give you room and we can start fresh and proper. Okay?”

There was something almost comical to that. The smile. The offer. The pleasantness. The room. Medical bay. She was in a medical bay. Nothing fancy, but letting herself stare past her captor/host told her enough. That would explain its brightness. Artificial. Lowlight. Ship. Visor. Where were they when she needed them most?

“Can I have my wrist back?”

_ Hire hand? Ridley? False sense of security? Let my guard down? Taken down without a fight? Unarmed? I got careless. _

“Please.”

_ Ridley would never be this creative. _

Her grip loosened yet even loosened, the Doctor remained in place, as if snatching it out would cause more trouble than it would be worth.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” she assured with a softer tone. “If I had any intention of causing you harm, would’ve been the opportune time while you were in cryosleep? It’s quite bad of me to have even considered that, isn’t it?”

_ Definitely not Ridley. Definitely not anyone I know.  _ Her fingers opened further and the Doctor, slowly, withdrew her wrist and, for the first time, showed mild discomfort, rubbing at the bone white patches of skin around the wrist.

She waited for something to prove her deduction wrong, a sudden flaring of movement, something aimed in her direction and the grin to devolve into a sadistic embodiment of success. It never came. This Doctor continued to rub at her wrist, working out the first spark of guilt before they met their blue eyes.

As if noticing something they uttered “Oh, right!” and took several steps back until they bumped into a counter littered with medical equipment. “Sorry. It's a bit distracting. Not used to these wrists,” she offered, again raising one as if to make the point clear as possible, still marked by her grip, and again smiling.

They looked at them, took in everything they could, how tall they were (roughly twenty centimeters shorter than herself), their style of dress (she put the most extreme modifications to her Power Suit to shame with the mismatching qualities, but like that, it came together as though it were always meant to be), the way they held themselves (facing them, hands on the counter, leaning back, rhythmically tapping their left foot) and their surroundings. A barebones medical bay, though barebones was a massive upgrade from a damaged cryotube incapable of providing for her medical needs. Her injuries! Why hadn’t she noticed?

She was up, world thrown into alignment, with a mild ache rather than searing pain which had beckoned off into cryosleep.

“It’s okay. It’s okay,” she could practically hear them wanting to come to their side and explain, but like she promised, she holds herself back, anchored to the counter. “It’s a patch-job. Your scans were off so the system couldn’t calibrate to your biometrics. And well,” there it is, the tone shifting ever so slightly into a seamless ramble mixed with trying to bridge the gap, “it’s invasive to use nanites on anyone so Tarak ink had to do. Takes longer to heal, but the results speak for themselves.” She sounded almost pleased as if trying to make a sale yet it’s sincere. 

Looking down at herself, she sees the dried red paste, smoothed to such a degree it could be mistaken for skin if not the distinct outline where it was chipped and cracked along the edges, over the wound down her left side, itself held together with a series of stitches just visible through the coverage. She ran her hands over it, fingers tracing the barest bump of the thread itself.

“The stitching should dissolve along with the paste once everything’s healed, clever how it knows to do that. Three or four days. Tops,” she explained, then did a rap of her fingers against the counter’s edge and chirps up without missing a beat. “You gotta be starving after all this? Tea. Biscuits. Nutrient bars.” Her words tapped off as if she was quite aware of what the last bit implied.

Crash. Ship. Beacon. Curious. Rescue. They would’ve found their way onto her ship and why wouldn’t they have looked around before finding her. 

They looked at her, one hand still resting on the covered wound, still holding back on a final judgement. Definitely not Ridley.  _ Can’t be working in an official or unofficial capacity for the Galactic Federation. There’s always a tell with them. A certain way they act around me. Not a merchant given the region of space. An explorer?  _ The thought hung for several seconds in her mind before she put it to the one side.

Out of the blue they made an O face. “Oh! No. Sorry. I should’ve made sure-” without missing a beat she pulled her hands away from the counter and began to sign with the odd pat of hands connecting - _to ask if you can hear me or not. Have not done this in a long while. Might be a bit rusty. Universal Standard?_ _Learned this from the-_ She stopped, hands twirling like the gears in a clock with the same energy as her voice.  _ Chozo. Bit of an issue with the- _

_ No. No. It can wait. Not now. _ “S...S...Samus,” she croaked with a stutter, voice straining to even be heard as a whisper, causing the Doctor’s hands to hold their place like an orchestra waiting for the conductor.  _ I can hear. Damage to my vocal cords. _ She signed, then pointed at her throat where, as the Doctor squinted to see, the faintest scar, jaggard and long, stretched across it, then she was back to signing, though slow and apprehensive:  _ You are….good at this. _ __

“Gotta make things a bit easier in the universe for everyone. Never hurts to know a bit. Can’t be verbal all the time,” she said, and thoughtfully stared at Samus before saying another word. “Tea?”

Who drank tea in this day and age? This doctor it seemed.  _ Definitely not Ridley,  _ she thought and raised her hands.  _ Yes. _

**Author's Note:**

> Samus Aran had two gay space bird dads. Where is the domestic slice of life fiction based on that idea alone?


End file.
